Published: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 at 5:50 p.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 at 5:50 p.m.

The sound of vendors chatting and customers browsing drifted in the chilly winter breeze at Smiley's flea market on the morning of Feb. 26, 2012. Witnesses described the day starting like any other morning, but minutes after 7 a.m., one conversation grew a little loud, and then gunshots rang out.

On the first day of 29-year-old Otha “Ray” Barefoot's murder trial, witnesses said the shots sounded like pops from a “cap-busting gun” or firecrackers, but were loud enough to draw their attention.

Witness after witness took the stand Tuesday to tell the jury they saw Paul Allen Bradish, a 59-year-old vendor known by some as “the Marine,” fall in a melee of bullets, and that Barefoot held the gun.

One witness said he saw Barefoot smirk after the shooting. Others heard him yell obscenities at a wounded Bradish, who gasped for air on the concrete floor. But another told the jury that if Bradish had only left Barefoot alone that morning, he might still be alive.

Barefoot's attorney, Mike Edney, told the jury in opening statements that his client doesn't deny he shot Bradish, but claims it was an act of self-defense prompted by constant bullying from Bradish.

Prosecutors painted a different scene in opening statements, saying they hope the jury will see evidence of “premeditated deliberate murder.”

Opening statements

Minutes after noon on Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Doug Mundy told members of the jury they would hear about Bradish's experience with Barefoot and about how the two were competitors at the flea market.

“They had bickered back and forth with each other,” he said, and Bradish had told Barefoot that his prices were too high.

Bradish was walking through the market that morning with his friend, Donald Mathis, when “they came upon the tables that Mr. Barefoot was working, and words were exchanged,” Mundy said. “And just like before, there was a little bickering that went on.”

Mundy told the jury that Barefoot looked at Bradish and “said something about whipping his a-double-s, to which Mr. Bradish responded, 'Bring it on.'”

Mundy said Barefoot went to his truck, which was backed up to his tables at the market, pulled out a handgun, walked back to Bradish and shot him.

“Not just one shot, not just two shots, not even three shots,” Mundy said. “You're going to hear testimony about how Mr. Bradish was shot five times by Mr. Barefoot.”

Mundy told the jury they would hear that Bradish was not jumping over the table to get to Barefoot; he was not going after him, and no weapons were found on his body.

On the morning of Feb. 26, in the middle of a row of concrete tables at Smiley's Flea Market, 59-year-old Bradish lay facedown in a pool of blood, “gasping for air,” Mundy said. After the shooting, he added, the jury would hear how Barefoot went to use someone's cellphone and “calmly” call for his parents to come pick up his truck.

“He left him to die, and in fact he did die of a gunshot wound to the head,” Mundy said.

At the end of the trial, he added, prosecutors would ask the jury to “find Mr. Barefoot guilty of premeditated and deliberate murder.”

Barefoot's attorney, Mike Edney, said the shooting wasn't murder, but an act of self-defense.

“What you're going to hear from the witness stand is that Mr. Bradish was basically a bully, that we have history with him, that he had threatened us before,” he told the jury.

Some of the vendors called Bradish “the Marine,” Edney said. He was bigger and stronger than Barefoot, and his client was the victim of Bradish's constant bullying.

“On this occasion — this morning — he went too far,” Edney said. “He was the one who said he was going to whip our a**. He said he was going to kill us. We did what we felt was appropriate.”

Edney asked the jury to listen when his client testifies and “determine whether or not you believe that he believes he had to do this.” He asked them to try to see the circumstances through his client's eyes before they make their decision, and if they find a reasonable person would have done the same thing that morning, “then murder is out of the question.”

He also told the jury that if they determine Barefoot may have gone too far, they should consider a manslaughter conviction.

Eyewitness testifies

Minutes after 2 p.m., the state called its first witness, Donald Mathis, to the stand.

Mathis said he had worked with Bradish “off-and-on” in the construction business for about six years and that Bradish had lost his job and started selling at Smiley's Flea Market. Mathis went to Smiley's around 7 a.m. Feb. 26 to browse the merchandise when he saw Bradish.

“I ran into Paul (Bradish) and Paul said, 'Don, come on, let's walk together,'” he told the jury. “He was complaining about his feet hurting with the gout.”

Mundy asked if Bradish said anything about trying to find Barefoot.

“No,” Mathis said.

He testified that they had walked down one aisle and just started on a second when they saw Barefoot talking to someone near the right front fender of his truck. Mathis said that Bradish interrupted Barefoot's conversation and asked Barefoot, “What are you smiling about this morning?”

“When I seen Paul (Bradish) wasn't moving, I started backing up” to the office at the end of the row, Mathis told the jury. He called 911.

Mathis testified that Bradish would “tease” Barefoot and call him names, but never heard Bradish threaten Barefoot or see their interactions turn physical. He told the jury he didn't see Bradish with any type of weapon, but Mathis admitted that he himself was carrying a gun that day in his pocket.

“Do you always carry a pistol with you?” Edney asked him under cross-examination.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time I do,” Mathis said.

“You're not carrying one now, are you?” Edney quipped.

“They wouldn't let me,” Mathis said as the jury snickered.

Under cross-examination, Mathis said he didn't know if Bradish was really bi-polar and taking medication, as Mathis had initially told police. When asked if he remembered telling police that Bradish had a secret life, Mathis said, “He had a girlfriend.”

When asked about his hand-written statement to police, which Edney said made it sound like Bradish was the one who threatened to whoop up on Barefoot, Mathis said that his memory was clear that Bradish was the one who said “Bring it on, big boy.”

Mathis told the court that he and Bradish were standing probably about 25 to 27 feet from Barefoot when Bradish teased him. He said that he remembered telling police that “Paul would go down and tease the old boy just to see him get mad.”

He said that he didn't know how much time had passed from when he heard Bradish say he had a gun to the sound of the first shot.

When Bradish fell, “he laid to the left of me like he was on the run,” Mathis said. “He had actually passed me” when he “fell belly down.”

Barefoot was still behind the table when the shots were fired, Mathis said.

'Moving and firing'

David Allen Brooks, who was vending across the aisle from Barefoot that day, told the jury that he was having a Moonpie breakfast when he saw Bradish and Barefoot speaking that morning. He said he saw Bradish step to the left “as if walking away” and only heard the words “big boy” before hearing the first shot ring out.

He saw Barefoot “pointing the gun” at Bradish and said he saw him fire the second shot. “Barefoot was moving forward and firing,” and Bradish was “curled up” as if he was trying to duck the bullets, he told the jury.

Brooks said Barefoot leaned forward to shoot Bradish in the head and then he heard “click, click, click” as Barefoot continued to pull the trigger on his empty gun.

After the shooting, Brooks told the jury, Barefoot looked him in the eyes and “smirked.”

Fatal shot

Dr. Patrick Lantz, professor of pathology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, told the jury that during an autopsy Feb. 28, he found what appeared to be five gunshot wounds on Bradish's body. The fatal shot, he said, was a wound to Bradish's right temple.

Bradish suffered other gunshot wounds to his right ear, right arm, the right side of his middle back and to the back of his left hand, he said. Three “projectiles,” which Lantz described as solid lead bullets, were recovered from Bradish's body.

Another witness, Richard Case, who was vending at the flea market Feb. 26, told the jury that he heard five or six shots as he saw Barefoot shoot Bradish.

Duane Anderson, who was also selling at Smiley's that morning, testified that the confrontation Bradish had with Barefoot “was more or less loud talking for a couple of minutes.”

He didn't recall hearing profanity, but said the gunshots sounded like firecrackers hitting the pavement. After he heard the first shot, Anderson said, he turned to see Barefoot continue to shoot Bradish, but couldn't believe his eyes.

“I was still trying to think in my head it wasn't real,” he said, because the person being shot wasn't moving. “He wasn't trying to get away.”

He said he thought he heard Bradish say “quit” or “stop” before a bullet spun him around and he fell.

Anderson told the jury that after the shooting, Barefoot looked over at Bradish “and said something to the effect of 'I told you not to aggravate me anymore' or 'I told you not to mess with me anymore.'”

He said Barefoot then “calmly” put his gun on the tailgate of his truck, picked up a crate, brought it to his table, picked up his gun and took it to the truck's cab. He said that Barefoot picked up another crate before the shooting seemed to hit him and he doubled over with his hands on his vehicle.

“It looked like he was going to be sick,” Anderson said.

He told the jury that Barefoot then went to borrow a lady's cellphone to call someone to come get his truck.

Edney asked Anderson if he remembered telling police at the time of the shooting that Barefoot had said to Bradish “don't threaten me.”

“No,” he said.

The day's last witness was Lindsay Barnwell, a paramedic with Henderson County EMS, who told the jury that no weapons were found on Bradish when they searched his body at the scene. She said Bradish had a pulse when she arrived, but his breaths were few and far between.

The state will resume its case at 9 a.m. tomorrow with testimony from one of at least four law enforcement officers who responded to the market after the shooting.

<p>The sound of vendors chatting and customers browsing drifted in the chilly winter breeze at Smiley's flea market on the morning of Feb. 26, 2012. Witnesses described the day starting like any other morning, but minutes after 7 a.m., one conversation grew a little loud, and then gunshots rang out.</p><p>On the first day of 29-year-old Otha “Ray” Barefoot's murder trial, witnesses said the shots sounded like pops from a “cap-busting gun” or firecrackers, but were loud enough to draw their attention.</p><p>Witness after witness took the stand Tuesday to tell the jury they saw Paul Allen Bradish, a 59-year-old vendor known by some as “the Marine,” fall in a melee of bullets, and that Barefoot held the gun.</p><p>One witness said he saw Barefoot smirk after the shooting. Others heard him yell obscenities at a wounded Bradish, who gasped for air on the concrete floor. But another told the jury that if Bradish had only left Barefoot alone that morning, he might still be alive.</p><p>Barefoot's attorney, Mike Edney, told the jury in opening statements that his client doesn't deny he shot Bradish, but claims it was an act of self-defense prompted by constant bullying from Bradish.</p><p>Prosecutors painted a different scene in opening statements, saying they hope the jury will see evidence of “premeditated deliberate murder.”</p><p> </p><p><b>Opening statements</b></p><p>Minutes after noon on Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Doug Mundy told members of the jury they would hear about Bradish's experience with Barefoot and about how the two were competitors at the flea market.</p><p>“They had bickered back and forth with each other,” he said, and Bradish had told Barefoot that his prices were too high.</p><p>Bradish was walking through the market that morning with his friend, Donald Mathis, when “they came upon the tables that Mr. Barefoot was working, and words were exchanged,” Mundy said. “And just like before, there was a little bickering that went on.”</p><p>Mundy told the jury that Barefoot looked at Bradish and “said something about whipping his a-double-s, to which Mr. Bradish responded, 'Bring it on.'”</p><p>Mundy said Barefoot went to his truck, which was backed up to his tables at the market, pulled out a handgun, walked back to Bradish and shot him. </p><p>“Not just one shot, not just two shots, not even three shots,” Mundy said. “You're going to hear testimony about how Mr. Bradish was shot five times by Mr. Barefoot.”</p><p>Mundy told the jury they would hear that Bradish was not jumping over the table to get to Barefoot; he was not going after him, and no weapons were found on his body. </p><p>On the morning of Feb. 26, in the middle of a row of concrete tables at Smiley's Flea Market, 59-year-old Bradish lay facedown in a pool of blood, “gasping for air,” Mundy said. After the shooting, he added, the jury would hear how Barefoot went to use someone's cellphone and “calmly” call for his parents to come pick up his truck.</p><p>“He left him to die, and in fact he did die of a gunshot wound to the head,” Mundy said.</p><p>At the end of the trial, he added, prosecutors would ask the jury to “find Mr. Barefoot guilty of premeditated and deliberate murder.”</p><p>Barefoot's attorney, Mike Edney, said the shooting wasn't murder, but an act of self-defense.</p><p>“What you're going to hear from the witness stand is that Mr. Bradish was basically a bully, that we have history with him, that he had threatened us before,” he told the jury.</p><p>Some of the vendors called Bradish “the Marine,” Edney said. He was bigger and stronger than Barefoot, and his client was the victim of Bradish's constant bullying. </p><p>“On this occasion — this morning — he went too far,” Edney said. “He was the one who said he was going to whip our a**. He said he was going to kill us. We did what we felt was appropriate.”</p><p>Edney asked the jury to listen when his client testifies and “determine whether or not you believe that he believes he had to do this.” He asked them to try to see the circumstances through his client's eyes before they make their decision, and if they find a reasonable person would have done the same thing that morning, “then murder is out of the question.”</p><p>He also told the jury that if they determine Barefoot may have gone too far, they should consider a manslaughter conviction.</p><p> </p><p><b>Eyewitness testifies </b></p><p>Minutes after 2 p.m., the state called its first witness, Donald Mathis, to the stand.</p><p>Mathis said he had worked with Bradish “off-and-on” in the construction business for about six years and that Bradish had lost his job and started selling at Smiley's Flea Market. Mathis went to Smiley's around 7 a.m. Feb. 26 to browse the merchandise when he saw Bradish.</p><p>“I ran into Paul (Bradish) and Paul said, 'Don, come on, let's walk together,'” he told the jury. “He was complaining about his feet hurting with the gout.”</p><p>Mundy asked if Bradish said anything about trying to find Barefoot.</p><p>“No,” Mathis said.</p><p>He testified that they had walked down one aisle and just started on a second when they saw Barefoot talking to someone near the right front fender of his truck. Mathis said that Bradish interrupted Barefoot's conversation and asked Barefoot, “What are you smiling about this morning?”</p><p>“He said something like, 'I'll whoop your a** this morning.' Paul (Bradish) stepped up to the table and said, 'Bring it on, big boy,'” Mathis said.</p><p>Mathis told the jury he started to walk away from the two men when seconds later he heard Bradish say, “Oh my God, he's got a gun!”</p><p>“I heard two shots like a cap-busting gun,” he said. Mathis testified he saw Bradish go past him and fall “belly down” onto the concrete floor, and saw Barefoot's hand raised and holding a gun.</p><p>“Barefoot said, 'I'll learn you to try to whoop my a**,'” Mathis said.</p><p>“When I seen Paul (Bradish) wasn't moving, I started backing up” to the office at the end of the row, Mathis told the jury. He called 911.</p><p>Mathis testified that Bradish would “tease” Barefoot and call him names, but never heard Bradish threaten Barefoot or see their interactions turn physical. He told the jury he didn't see Bradish with any type of weapon, but Mathis admitted that he himself was carrying a gun that day in his pocket.</p><p>“Do you always carry a pistol with you?” Edney asked him under cross-examination.</p><p>“Ninety-nine percent of the time I do,” Mathis said.</p><p>“You're not carrying one now, are you?” Edney quipped.</p><p>“They wouldn't let me,” Mathis said as the jury snickered. </p><p>Under cross-examination, Mathis said he didn't know if Bradish was really bi-polar and taking medication, as Mathis had initially told police. When asked if he remembered telling police that Bradish had a secret life, Mathis said, “He had a girlfriend.”</p><p>When asked about his hand-written statement to police, which Edney said made it sound like Bradish was the one who threatened to whoop up on Barefoot, Mathis said that his memory was clear that Bradish was the one who said “Bring it on, big boy.”</p><p>Mathis told the court that he and Bradish were standing probably about 25 to 27 feet from Barefoot when Bradish teased him. He said that he remembered telling police that “Paul would go down and tease the old boy just to see him get mad.”</p><p>He said that he didn't know how much time had passed from when he heard Bradish say he had a gun to the sound of the first shot. </p><p>“I just know it happened real quick,” he said.</p><p>Edney asked if Mathis remembered telling police that Bradish “should have kept his mouth shut that morning.”</p><p>“Yeah, he would have been alive” if he had, Mathis said.</p><p>When Bradish fell, “he laid to the left of me like he was on the run,” Mathis said. “He had actually passed me” when he “fell belly down.”</p><p>Barefoot was still behind the table when the shots were fired, Mathis said.</p><p><b>'Moving and firing' </b></p><p>David Allen Brooks, who was vending across the aisle from Barefoot that day, told the jury that he was having a Moonpie breakfast when he saw Bradish and Barefoot speaking that morning. He said he saw Bradish step to the left “as if walking away” and only heard the words “big boy” before hearing the first shot ring out.</p><p>He saw Barefoot “pointing the gun” at Bradish and said he saw him fire the second shot. “Barefoot was moving forward and firing,” and Bradish was “curled up” as if he was trying to duck the bullets, he told the jury.</p><p>Brooks said Barefoot leaned forward to shoot Bradish in the head and then he heard “click, click, click” as Barefoot continued to pull the trigger on his empty gun.</p><p>After the shooting, Brooks told the jury, Barefoot looked him in the eyes and “smirked.”</p><p> </p><p><b>Fatal shot</b></p><p>Dr. Patrick Lantz, professor of pathology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, told the jury that during an autopsy Feb. 28, he found what appeared to be five gunshot wounds on Bradish's body. The fatal shot, he said, was a wound to Bradish's right temple.</p><p>Bradish suffered other gunshot wounds to his right ear, right arm, the right side of his middle back and to the back of his left hand, he said. Three “projectiles,” which Lantz described as solid lead bullets, were recovered from Bradish's body.</p><p>Another witness, Richard Case, who was vending at the flea market Feb. 26, told the jury that he heard five or six shots as he saw Barefoot shoot Bradish.</p><p>Duane Anderson, who was also selling at Smiley's that morning, testified that the confrontation Bradish had with Barefoot “was more or less loud talking for a couple of minutes.”</p><p>He didn't recall hearing profanity, but said the gunshots sounded like firecrackers hitting the pavement. After he heard the first shot, Anderson said, he turned to see Barefoot continue to shoot Bradish, but couldn't believe his eyes.</p><p>“I was still trying to think in my head it wasn't real,” he said, because the person being shot wasn't moving. “He wasn't trying to get away.”</p><p>He said he thought he heard Bradish say “quit” or “stop” before a bullet spun him around and he fell.</p><p>Anderson told the jury that after the shooting, Barefoot looked over at Bradish “and said something to the effect of 'I told you not to aggravate me anymore' or 'I told you not to mess with me anymore.'”</p><p>He said Barefoot then “calmly” put his gun on the tailgate of his truck, picked up a crate, brought it to his table, picked up his gun and took it to the truck's cab. He said that Barefoot picked up another crate before the shooting seemed to hit him and he doubled over with his hands on his vehicle.</p><p>“It looked like he was going to be sick,” Anderson said.</p><p>He told the jury that Barefoot then went to borrow a lady's cellphone to call someone to come get his truck.</p><p>Edney asked Anderson if he remembered telling police at the time of the shooting that Barefoot had said to Bradish “don't threaten me.”</p><p>“No,” he said.</p><p>The day's last witness was Lindsay Barnwell, a paramedic with Henderson County EMS, who told the jury that no weapons were found on Bradish when they searched his body at the scene. She said Bradish had a pulse when she arrived, but his breaths were few and far between.</p><p>The state will resume its case at 9 a.m. tomorrow with testimony from one of at least four law enforcement officers who responded to the market after the shooting.</p><p>___</p><p>Reach Weaver at emily.weaver@blueridgenow.com or 828-694-7867.</p>